Lillian's Italian Kitchen 1116 Soquel Ave Santa Cruz, CA 95062 831-425-2288
You can't throw something in Santa Cruz without hitting an Italian restaurant it seems. Ristorante Avanti, Lucio's, Limoncello, La Posta, all favorites of mine. I was looking for a simple lunch today and remembered that Lillian's was open for lunch so decided to finally check it out.
Lillian's isn't like any of those. It's more casual, more like something maybe from Little Italy. Granted I was there for lunch and I've heard they've got some items on their dinner menu that are must-haves. I got the lunch special which is a cup of soup and a half order of one of their pastas. The soup was Pasta Fagioli, cannellini beans, chard, just a hint of heat. I devoured it and mopped up the bowl with my French bread. Quite tasty! And since I wanted something just basic and simple, I got the Penne Arrabiatta. It had a good amount of heat but not so much to destroy my taste buds. I would have added a little more salt and fresh basil (there was fresh basil on top but not enough to get some in every bite). But overall it was a good dish, I didn't leave much!
I need to go back for dinner and not by myself so I can try more dishes. But all in all a very good lunch special and I walked out of there paying only $10! You don't find that very often these days.
La Posta 538 Seabright Ave. Santa Cruz, CA 95062 831-457-2782
We had an excellent dinner tonight at La Posta. I've been meaning go there for ages and we finally made it down. My husband and son devoured the mixed salumi plate (everything on the plate was house-cured except for the imported prosciutto). I had the Baby mixed lettuces with anchovy vinaigrette and was very much looking forward to the anchovy vinaigrette. I was not disappointed, it was overwhelmingly anchovied and amazing.
My main course was the Roasted Striped Bass with clams,artichokes, fingerling potatoes, and leeks. The fish was perfectly cooked, the leeks still had a bit of a good crunch to them, the clams were flavorful, everything meshed very well together. I accompanied the meal with a glass of 2005 La Spinetta "Ca di Pian" Barbera d'Asti, careful not to drink it with the artichokes! It was a beautiful wine. I finished the meal with two incredible scoops of Strawberry Gelato. It's made in-house and is the essence of strawberry. It's served atop strawberry puree and with a large, yummy in-season, local strawberry. A perfect dessert, that is if you're a strawberry freak! It was awesome.
I'm glad we finally made it down there, it was worth the wait. We'll be back soon.
Black China Cafe 1121 Soquel Ave. Santa Cruz, CA 95062 (831) 460-1600
Given that I just grabbed a sandwich to go, this review is based on very limited input. Having said that, the sandwich was exquisite. They called it an open faced sandwich, but it was really more like three pieces of bruschetta. Toasted francese with a large pile of delicious hummus (not at all bland or pasty) topped with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, basil, fennel seeds, and sesame seeds. It was the perfect sandwich for a lovely sunny spring day.
Keep an eye on this page, I have a feeling I'll be adding reviews as I go back more often. I have to go back, I didn't come home with any of their famous dessert!!
Gabriella Café 910 Cedar St Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (831) 457-1677
It had been a while since I'd been to Gabriella Café, they seemed to have a slight downturn in the kitchen a couple years ago, but that is the case no longer. We had an outstanding meal.
Since it was my husband's birthday, we started the meal off with a 1998 Roederer champagne. It was lovely with the amuse bouche sent out by the chef: an oyster with lentil "caviar." The oyster was a perfect size with excellent flavor but I think I needed a squeeze of lemon or a dash of vinegar to bring a little acid to it. Nevertheless, it was a great opener.
We stared at the list of antipasti and salads for quite awhile not able to decide which ones to get. The way we solved that problem was by getting all of them! Well, all but the Pigs Blood which just grossed me out. Anyway, the first to come out was the Chili Mint Shrimp (with green garlic anchovy white bean purée). The shrimp had a good char on the outside, and was cooked flawlessly. Served at the same time, the Seared Kampachi Spine had tremendous flavor but was quite the challenge to eat, seemingly having more bones than flesh. The flavor was so good however, we sucked the bones clean!
The winners of the evening, without question, were Hamachi and the Marinated Asparagus dishes. I eat as much raw fish as I can, so I have a lot of palatial experiences (experiences with the palate) to compare this to. This was some of the best hamachi I have ever had. It was on par with the Ahi we ate in Hawaii that was just an hour out of the water. Complementing it were two fried sides: a shrimp polpettini that wasn't overwhelmingly shrimpy just scrumptious, and fried spring onion, both of which added a good contrast to the freshness of the fish by being fried and crunchy (and I'm not typically a huge fan of fried food). The asparagus dish was served with a rustic salsa verde which was acidic, smoky, buttery and overall just yummy. The asparagus was perfectly crunchy and a wonderful, fresh reminder that it is spring. It also included "Upland Cress" which is a type of cress I'd never tried; it had a nuttiness similar to arugula but with an almost musty flavor, I'll have to keep an eye out for this market, I very much enjoyed it.
Having moved on from the Roederer, we needed a hearty red wine to go with our entr&actue;es. The chef recommended a Ridge Lytton Springs, and although we would have loved it, we've got that in our cellar and wanted to try something we didn't have. So we went with a 2005 Alfeo Super Tuscan. I have to say, it went very well with my braised beef cheeks. If you would have told me a couple of years ago that I would be ordering beef cheeks, I would've thought you were insane. I remember watching an Iron Chef episode back when it was on the Japanese station and just subtitled—pre-Food Network bastardization of the show—entitled Hohoniku Confront! a.k.a. Battle Beef Cheek. They were so excited about the portion of the cow that they got to use for this battle, the commentators had the on screen drawing tools they use for football games, which they were using to point out the perfectly gelatinous-looking areas of the beef cheek that were the best to eat. I think I may now understand the love. The meat had all the flavor of a slow cooked stew meat, but was amazingly tender and buttery, not at all stringy, with the ideal amount of texture. It was supposed to have been served with polenta, but that already had cheese in it so that was out for me, so they substituted a braised Umbrian Chicerchia herb salad instead. The Chicerchia is a cross between a fava bean and a chick pea and that is exactly what it tastes like. I would say that's another thing I want to look for in the market but fava beans are so much work to shuck, if these are the same, I will never make them! I'll leave that to the fancy-pants chefs at places like Gabriella. The dessert menus came and I was shocked to see that there wasn't a single chocolate dessert on the menu… what was I to do? Well I wasn't disappointed. I ordered the "peas and carrots" which I was pretty positive didn't involve peas or carrots. It was gelato prepared in a way that reminded me of a terrine without the wiggly-Jello aspect: pastel layers of gelato. I much prefer this preparation!
We had a meal without disappointment, with a few surprises, and a desire to return soon to an old favorite haunt.
I've been driving by Limoncello meaning to go there for a while. We finally decided, somewhat on a whim on Saturday night, to try out dinner there. Not the smartest move on Saturday night on Easter weekend, without a reservation. But we waited for about half an hour, and got a table outside. While waiting we could hear everyone raving as they left the restaurant after wonderful meals. I couldn't wait for mine.
I started with an antipasti of Crostini di Melanzane al Funghetto (Toasted bread topped with fried eggplant, garlic, tomato, parmesan and Romano cheese). If you been reading my reviews for awhile though, you know that I got it without cheese. It was absolutely fantastic. The eggplant had no bitterness in it whatsoever, and was cooked perfectly. I shared one piece (with cheese) with my husband, and devoured the other three pieces myself.
For my main course I got the Strozzapreti al Sugo di Carne (Corkscrew egg pasta in a southern italian style meat sauce). I just recently began eating meat again. I'm not sure what changed, but it started tasting good to me again after 15 years of not eating it. I love how many more things I can eat off the menu now and after ordering this particular dish, I'm really happy I fell off the wagon. It wasn't just a ground beef Bolognese sauce, it had what I believe were whole pork spareribs, but given that meat is new to me again, I'm not the best at identifying it yet. No matter what it was it was delicious! One of the things that is still creepy to me about eating meat is gnawing flesh off a bone, this was so good I had no problem with that this time! I was munching away!
My 3 1/2 year old son got the Linguine Li Galli (Flat spaghetti with a tomato, onion, caper sauce). He's a huge fan of the caper. He was not disappointed either, the capers were huge and there were plenty of them. It's always a bonus to find a very good restaurant that is kid friendly and still has amazing food (like here, Ristorante Avanti, and Caffe Lucio).
The waiter was very adamant that nothing in the kitchen is "precooked.." Apparently there are a lot of people who don't understand the "slow food" concept in this town. Caffé Lucio also had to post a sign that cooking fresh food takes time and you need to be patient. Even when dining with a three-year-old I understand that there's going to be a wait, actually I expect there to be a wait, if there isn't one I get worried. Everything was served in a reasonable amount of time and what little wait we had was filled by a lovely 2001 Castello Romitorio Brunello di Montelcino. I think Brunello is my favorite Italian wine. It never seems to disappoint.
The only problem with the meal was that I couldn't finish it! Really not a problem in the end, since I also got to have for lunch today.
I'm already looking forward to heading back and I really want to try their paninis at lunch. But now I know reservations are highly, highly recommended! It is popular for good reason, we had an excellent meal. Santa Cruz is definitely not lacking for a good Italian meal. But just like Italy, each place has their own style, specialty, and flair. Welcome back to the neighborhood Limoncello!
Addendum: I popped into Limoncello for lunch today. I was torn, so I asked the waiter if I should get the Panino con Bistecchina (Marinated flank steak in homemade bread) or the Cacuzzo con Calamari al Sugo (Calamari in a spicy tomato sauce in hollow bread loaf). He confidently recommended the flank steak and, not having had the calamari, I don't know if it's better, but I wasn't let down with the recommendation. I was trying to decipher what the marinade was, and was told it was a secret, but all I could figure out was fennel seeds. I think that was the best steak sandwich I've ever had. For dessert I got what was, I think, their signature dessert. It was a frozen parfait swirled with frozen limoncello yumminess. It was pretty as well as delicious and I could have easily devoured three or four of those, but really I was stuffed.! So Limoncello has my wholehearted recommendation for both lunch and dinner!!
dining with a three-year-old I understand that there's going to be a wait, actually I expect there to be a wait, if there isn't one I get worried. Everything was served in a reasonable amount of time and what little wait we had was filled by a lovely 2001 Castello Romitorio Brunello di Montelcino. I think Brunello is my favorite Italian wine. It never seems to disappoint.